Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2011 11:51 amPosts: 8120Location: United States of New England

yeah im hoping to keep it under wraps for at least another week though. :-/my supervisor's father just passed away so i dont think this is the best week to inform her im leaving the company.plus i want to wait until after my next dr appt which is thursday so hopefully i wont totally chunk out this week. i seem to be ok just sucking my gut in.

well at the very least maybe people have figured it out and just are keeping quiet ;-)

I bet you can still cover that bump up with loose tops if you need to. Not for too much longer though.... Cute!

I found out that we're having a boy and a girl! Exciting. I think it's really cool to know for sure that the twins are fraternal rather than identical. I'm feeling pretty good overall, but man, I've suddenly gotten HUGE. I guess this what happens when you're pregnant with twins-- I went from looking a bit chubby to very obviously pregnant super fast. I think I'm going to outgrow my maternity pants if this keeps up. I'm as big at 23 weeks as I was at nearly full term with my daughter. Gah.

Identical babies gotta have identical genitals too, so once they figured out the sexes, that told us! If they had been two boys or two girls, we wouldn't have known if they were identical or fraternal until after they were born.

hey guys, i'm back! haha. tzipi went off to daycare this morning and i got a good couple naps in, so i'm feeling more human again.

two things:

first, homebirth is seriously awesomesauce, and second, hooooly shiitake was that labour intense.

on saturday morning i started having some contractions, but nothing i hadn't felt before. however, i sent tzipi and mr bird out because they were annoying me, and i went for a walk. they texted to say they were at the park a couple hours later, so i went over to meet them. the contractions were "real" ones now, but really erratic. i spent the afternoon pacing around the park seeing if i could get them to intensify. anyway, by the evening, we had to decide whether this might end up being the real deal, and if we should send tzipi to her friend's house for the night. our main person had a sick kid, so we got our back-up sorted out and mr bird went to drop tzipi off at around 8pm. my contractions were still pretty erratic. it sort of surprised me, because with my first labour, when i was having contractions that felt like that, they were pretty regular and close together. i was even having trouble breathing through a couple, even though they were like 15-20 min apart. so i called the midwife, and surprisingly, she said they were coming over.

the midwives were there at about 9pm. at 10, they checked me, and i was only 3 cm dilated, the contractions were very spaced out and manageable. they told me i could walk around to speed things up, or i could go to bed and get some sleep. i felt really shitty at that point... i knew they'd been up since 4am that morning for another birth, and i didn't know if that meant they were going to leave or if they were going to be tired... anyway, i made a half-assed attempt to walk around, but ended up in bed sleeping. mr. bird came to bed too, the midwives camped out on our sofas, and everyone dozed pretty solidly for about 4 hours.

at 2ish, i woke up to go to the bathroom, and my water broke with a pop. suddenly the pressure and discomfort i'd been feeling in my lower abdomen decreased. i went back to bed, but the contractions were getting stronger, and in any case, i was literally gushing water everywhere. while we were tidying up our umpteenth soaked towel and chux pad, the midwives woke up and came in. the midwife checked me and i was 4cm dilated, and fully effaced. mr bird and i stayed together in the bedroom for a bit, and i was happy to see that i was finally having strong, steady, contractions.

this is where, as they say, shiitake got real. probably 5 minutes after having that thought, i was suddenly out of control. i barely made it into the shower, where i spent the next few contractions cursing my idiocy for not going to the hospital and getting a forking epidural. i was seriously losing it. i ended up back in bed, screaming and yelling and shoving poor mr. bird around. literally as i was wondering why no one was telling me to relax and pace myself and "oooopen" up or whatever, i realized there were 3 midwives in the room, and i was starting to push. apparently the pushing stage was 28 minutes long, but it felt a lot shorter. because of how quickly everything happened, the baby's head was completely unmolded, which was, to say the least, an interesting sensation coming out.

anyway, her name is Lydia Noémie, and she was born at 4:20 in the morning, an even 8 1/2 lbs and very healthy. this kid is a champion nurser... she nursed for the first time about an hour after birth and was literally chugging milk. she even had milk running down her chin! Since then, breastfeeding has been a breeze, although i'm a little raw. also, i didn't end up with any stitches... just a little tear on one side that'll heal up on its own and a couple skid marks.

i feel so incredibly lucky to have had such a smooth and uneventful home birth. i am just so happy how everything turned out. i don't think i could have asked for anything better (well, other than maybe another hour or two in between my water breaking and having a baby!)